Here's how to search MyCase for Indiana criminal and civil court documents

If you want to check up on your neighbor, new babysitter or your own record, you can do so through a free court record database.

MyCase is an online publicly available records database including information on civil and criminal cases within the Indiana court system. People can find information on charges, lawsuits and other court proceedings in the system.

Kathryn Dolan, Indiana Supreme Court chief public information officer, said the site provides “tremendous accessibility” to residents and had 34 million site visits in 2021.

Where do the records come from?

Records are available through Indiana’s Odyssey system and older converted data. Through the Odyssey case management system, participating courts make non-confidential case information available for the public.

Dolan said every county in Indiana now inputs case information into the system. Information on the site is updated when the local court updates it.

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Some older records may not be on MyCase because the individual courts have to add and update information. Some courts only display cases since they started using this system, while others are adding those that predate it.

For additional case information, people can contact the clerks and courts where the case took place.

Here's what you need to know about using MyCase in Indiana:

How can I search MyCase?

A specific person’s case history can be found by providing their last name along with their first and middle names to narrow the search. A person’s birth date can also be entered, but it may drop records from your search since this data is not typically recorded in cases.

An attorney can also be searched through their last name and either their first or middle name. The attorney or bar number, which can be found on the Indiana Roll of Attorneys, can also be used.

Businesses can be found through typing their business name as it would be found in a case record.

If you’re having trouble spelling a name right, using the sounds-like search will surface cases with similar names and alternate spellings to the one entered.

Users can also do a wild card search, which helps people find what they are looking for even without necessary information. By placing an asterisk at the end of a search term, it will search with what the user provided, such as a few letters of a name or a partial case number, and give a number of applicable results.

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People also can search the database by case, which means putting in a case, citation or cross reference number. Since a case number indicates county, court, date filed, and case type, that number is variable to change, such as if a case is moved to a different court. Citation or cross reference numbers will have results only if the number is exactly how it appears in the case file, but they do not usually field many results.

People can specify their search by using the advanced option including case status and a file date range. One or more courts can be chosen to refine the results as well.

What documents are available?

When looking at a specific case, some non-confidential documents may be available.

Publicly available documents include:

• Orders in many civil case types

• Non-confidential documents in miscellaneous criminal cases

• Criminal cases final orders and judgments

• Orders and other non-confidential documents from pending or denied expungement cases

• Opinions and orders in appellate cases

• An attorney’s briefs, petitions and motions in non-confidential appellate cases

It is possible for a document to be available but not online. Courts can be contacted for inquiries to obtain such documents.

Can I pay fees online?

Certain cases allow people to make online payments if the ‘make a payment’ button appears. This can be done with traffic tickets in some courts and criminal fees in Lake County Circuit & Superior Courts.

Also, some cases include financial information, such as amounts owed, credits and payments. However, the balances are not always up-to-date.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: MyCase search: How to look up court cases in Indiana